Just Before Death

Down in the depths of darkness,
Chained to an iron wall,
Naked, I wept
Then I heard her, a soft, trickling murmur,
A whisper, a word, "promises you give"
As the Great Bard has sung before
In a stream of love and sadness
A ray of light struck from a crystal sphere
To push away the sorrow and pain and regret and shame and agony and death
Leaving nothing but peace

But then her voice leaves,
And her shadow crumbles into the murky dust
That floats in drifts to the tiny window
Through which rain and mud are thrown by God and man
Leaving me covered in a fine layer of silt,
To suffocate under eternity

The chains have rusted and blow away,
Burnt shards of bone piled outside the tiny window
The darkness swept clean of everything
Everything but the darkness